Drinking water before meals leads to weight loss

Washington D.C: A new study claims that drinking a bottle of water before meals could help obese adults in reducing weight. University of Birmingham researchers believe that the simple intervention could be hugely beneficial.

In the study, obese adult participants were recruited from general practices and monitored over a 12 week period. Forty one of those recruited were asked to preload with water, and 43 were advised to imagine that they had a full stomach before eating.

Participants who were instructed to preload with water, lost 1.3kg more than those in the control group.Those who reported preloading before all three main meals in the day reported a loss of 4.3kg over the 12 weeks, whereas those who only preloaded once, or not at all, only lost an average of 0.8kg.

Helen Parretti of University of Birmingham explained that the beauty of these findings was in the simplicity, and added that just drinking a pint of water, three times a day, before your main meals might help reduce weight. She concluded that losing a few extra pounds over the course of a year could be significant to an individual, and could be an easy way to help with the weight loss.

The study is published in the Journal Obesity.